You & I

6

6

August 23, 2020

Meg's POV

*At Physical Therapy*

I'm at physical therapy and I've been doing pretty good for the 4 weeks I've been here. I can drive and feel comfortable doing it which is huge considering Christian is on a road trip right now. I'm in a lot of pain today because today she took my brace off and had me bending it and trying to put weight on it which hurt a lot. I'm barely full weight barring with my brace on but I'm trying to push through to get this over with. I can walk on my own for 15 minutes with the brace which is good.

"Meg, you need to take a break. I can see how much physical pain your in and you don't have to be. Sit down and take a breather," my physical therapist, Jessica, tells me. "Jess, I'm fine. What's next?"

"Nothing meg, sit down. I know that your trying to get through this and that it hurts, I get it. But you forcing it, will only make it worse and make it harder to recover. Just sit down and let me put your brace back on so you can go home and rest. And ice. I'm not gonna let you push harder then you should be. I get the whole athlete mentality of trying to get through it as quick as possible so you can start training again but you have time so let your body help you heal."

"Fine. I'll see you Friday. Thank you"

"I'll see you Friday," she hands me ice and puts my knee brace back on and sends me home. I get back to Christian's car and as soon as I get in I call him and hit FaceTime out of instinct because we always FaceTime when he's gone.

"Hey beautiful, you just get done with PT," he asks with a smile. I nod and lean my head on the window and angle my phone so he can still see me. I sigh as I try to fight back tears but I just can't and they just start flowing.

He looks at me with concern and says, "Baby, what happened? Are you ok?"

"I can't do this. I'm so fucking useless and I can't do it anymore Christian."

"Meg, what happened?"

"Jess fucking yelled at me today for going too hard and my knee is killing me. It hurts so much and I hate feeling useless. The whole reason I came out to Milwaukee was to be with you because those two months when we were apart killed me but I can't even be with you because I can't travel because my ACL was shredded into a million pieces. I miss you so much Christian and I need you but you're in fucking Oakland right now. God, I need you so much right now CY."

"I need you to calm down for a second and breathe. I'll be home at like 4:30 and we can figure everything out together. I need you to stay calm because I know when you get stressed and overwhelmed you tend to forget that you have a knee brace and crutches and forget to sleep."

"Babe, I just wanna go back to normal before I fucked my knee up. I can't keep doing this. I haven't showered in a week because I can't stand long enough too. I'm just so useless. And I feel fucking stupid crying in your car in the parking lot right now. I just can't do this anymore Christian like I'm so done."

"Give me a minute brauny," he says waving him away and starts talking softly, "it's ok, you're ok baby. I know it sucks and it's hard but you are doing so much better then you think you are. I'm so proud of how far you've come from when you first had surgery. You can bend your knee which is huge. And Jess said that we couldn't have sex until you can bend your knee so I promise that when I get home, I'll give you the best damn sex you've ever had but you need to breathe and relax for me ok. And wipe those tears because I hate seeing your beautiful face cry. I'll see you in 12 hours and we'll face this together ok?"